Fri Mar 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

“Welcome to Rebel Haiti!”

The first contact with Haiti is Port au Prince. the neighbourhoods. remind us of the hills of Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian troops are invading these neighbourhood. they shoot to kill and move away. When we leave the plane, the heat is suffocating. Haitian people are black and handsome. The country is known for its impressive poverty, for the 80% unemployment. The history of this country that has fought the first Negro revolution and achieved the first victorious anti-colonial revolution and then, in 1986, defeated the bloodthirsty Duvalier dictatorship is not known. One day they will once more rebel against this deprivation.


 


We are awaited by the comrades of Batay Ouvriye, a trade union and popular organisation in struggle against occupation. They take us directly to a welcome reception in one of their offices in Belair. On our way we can see Brazilian soldiers in the streets, armed to their back teeth, a copy of the Yankees in Iraq.


 


Some forty people are waiting for us. The Brazilian representation fills the house. The congenial faces of the Haitians make us feel at home. On the wall there is a poster saying in Creole “now se wowoli, nam mitan pitini” (we are small plants but plentiful; they can tread on us, but they cannot take our fragrance away). George of Batay Ouvriye starts the activity. A worker tells us how the Brazilian troops repress demonstrations. A landless peasant speaks of the occupations; a woman workers of a maquila tells us that factories to not allow trade unions.


 


The salary of a maquila worker is of $60 a month. Marceline, an old woman worker, shows the gaps where her teeth have been. She says that the manager of the factory pushed her down to the floor and broke her teeth. She says that her hair is grey now and that she will not see the revolution, but it will come and her grandchildren will be able to live in better conditions. Torinho, of the Metal workers trade union of Sao Jose dos Campos (Sao Paulo) and of the PSTU, hands over the letter we have brought from Brazil with hundreds of signatures. Everybody applauds. Marceline speaks again to say that a letter is not enough and that it is necessary to fight.


 


On our way to the hotel, another comrade of Batay shows us the statues of Toussant L’ouverture and Dessaline, heroes of Haitian independence. He tells us that the bus strike that has now been on for ten days was practically a general strike for people could not and did not wish to go to work. The weather is getting hotter: “Welcome to Rebel Haiti!”

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